Christopher McQuarrie Talks Edge Of Tomorrow 2

A couple of weeks ago Tom Cruise commented that he had an idea for a sequel to last year’s Edge Of Tomorrow. Doug Liman’s Groundhog Day themed sci-fi was a by far one of my favourite movies of the summer. Sadly, Hollywood seemed confused by its premise and it didn’t quite have the impact the studio were hoping for.

A robust international box office brought in $269 million to add to the domestic haul of just over $100 million. Based on the book All You Need Is Kill, the studio changed the name to the somewhat vague Edge of Tomorrow, then for DVD the tagline ‘Live Die Repeat’ was adopted.

Co-written by Christopher McQuarrie (he did a final spruce up), Edge Of Tomorrow should have been a much bigger hit than it wound up. The trailers did a great job of trying to explain the premise, but left out all the humour and charm of its leading man. While I think it works perfectly as a singular movie, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued to see what a sequel would look like.

In a recent interview with Christopher McQuarrie, the filmmaker talked about what it would take to bring a sequel to the big screen.

“It all comes down to Warner Bros. and Doug Liman and Emily Blunt saying yes. The idea is there. At worst, it’s the kernel of an idea – which is, on one hand, great, but on the other hand, I know what a nightmare that is. I know that I’ll be in the void trying to figure that out. And even then when it came out in the press after Tom had mentioned it, right away, there were people on social media saying, “Don’t do it, it should never have a sequel, etc., etc.” And I’m just laughing because I’m like, “You guys don’t even know what we are talking about! You have no idea!” Look, that was one of the best creative teams I’ve ever worked with as far as a team of rivals: Emily is one facet of that; Doug Liman is a completely different and opposing force; Tom Cruise is another. And there I am in the middle, just playing to these three really strong, really smart people.”

McQuarrie went on the talk about the night when Tom Cruise pitched him the idea for Edge of Tomorrow 2.

“We went out to dinner when we were making Mission and Tom said, “I have an idea for the sequel to Edge, and I said, “I don’t want to f*cking hear it. I do not want to know!” And he pitched the idea to me and he finished pitching it, I was like, “Goddammit, why did you do that?”

While I’m adamant that a sequel isn’t the best use of their creative energy, I wouldn’t be totally against exploring the alien invasion so more. Paramount are readying a sixth Mission Impossible and are looking to fast track the project into production next summer. McQuarrie is unlikely to return as each sequel has been directed by a new filmmaker.

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